Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Can
a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?

By Julio
Severo

The answer to
the title of this article is: Of course not! I, for example, have never
defended any kind of Inquisition, and if I ever do it, obviously I will have to
abandon the pro-life fight, because it makes no sense selectively to condemn a
genocide and support another.

Pope John Paul
II, author of the encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” was a pro-life champion
and he did not defend the Inquisition. On the contrary, he had the honesty to
ask forgiveness for what the Inquisition and its agents did.

The defense of
the Inquisition, for any Christian who considers himself pro-life, is so
shameful that the only option left to its defenders is to deflect the debate to
other details that flee from the essential question.

Three hundred
years ago, Jonathan Swift, in his “Gulliver’s Travels,” used the example of a
cow, and how a malicious neighbor might, with the help of a dishonest lawyer,
say that the animal belonged to him, not to Gulliver. The method is simple:
instead of focusing on the central topic of who the cow really belongs to, the
lawyer will make the judge digress into details consuming time and energy: the
cow’s age, the nature of its pasture is, its size is, etc.

The major
digression in the issue of the Inquisition and a pro-life identity came with
this comment:

In the subject of the history of the Inquisition,
Julio is completely illiterate. The Protestant Reformation, in England, killed
in a few months more people than the Inquisition did in four centuries.

Obviously, this
comment did not respond to the main question in my article: How can those who defend the Inquisition
fight against abortion?

Or, to be more
precise: How do they want to fight
the culture of death of socialism, homosexuality and feminism when they feel
comfortable with the culture of torture and death of the Inquisition?

I do not mention
the identity of the comment author in order to make it clear that I am
attacking stances and ideas, not people. Moreover, the author is a man I
respect, in spite of differences. I respect greatly his wife too, a very
considerate woman. Yet, for literary convenience, I will call him in this text
just Jack Man.

Sometimes, it is
preferable not to mention real names to avoid embarrassment and personal
attacks. In the case of his comment, Jack Man did not show this consideration,
and many of his followers have interpreted his comment as a carte blanche to
post aggressive messages both in my Facebook and in other forums, not sparing
expletives and names such as “antichrist.” Some said, “The master has spoken,
so shut up!”At least, the axes,
sickles and hammers were only in very heavy and ugly words. (I’m already
accustomed to this, coming from the Protestant Left, whose more frequent
weapons are expletives.)

It is in a
moment such as this that I give thanks to God that there is no more the
Inquisition, because if there were, this rabid pro-Inquisition mob would come
up to me with real axes, sickles and hammers to lynch me much before the
tribunal of the holy office were able to pick me, judge me and condemn me to
death by burning.

One of the
strong Catholic reactions to my questioning if the pro-life identity can join
the defense of the Inquisition was:

Seeing Julio Severo defaming and denigrating the
Inquisition, I notice that he is an ignorant or acts in bad faith. If he is
ignorant, he may still learn. If he acts in bad faith, he deserves to be
execrated. Anyway, what he said does not offend me. I think that what is much
more serious is that those who have an
obligation to defend the Inquisition are shamed of it.

This explicitly
pro-Inquisition Facebook comment could be seen as an isolated case, but it was
“liked” (or signed) by some Midia Sem Mascara columnists.

If they want to
accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” communism and its atrocities, I
humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.

If they want to
accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” Nazism and its crime of the
Holocaust, I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.

In a similar
way, if they want to accuse me of “defaming” and “denigrating” the Inquisition,
I humbly accept this “shame” — which for me is a great joy.

They can also
add that I “defame” and “denigrate” the International Planned Parenthood
Federation (IPPF). This is the largest organization of contraception, abortion
and sex education in the world. Its founder, Margaret Sanger, came from an
Irish Catholic family, and before the rise of the Soviet Union, she already
preached feminism, socialism, abortion and anarchy. Her strongest opponent was evangelical Anthony
Comstock.

There is a
parallel between the Inquisition and IPPF. Both have varied torture tools.
While the Catholic Inquisition tortured and killed presumably only adults, IPPF
uses medical instruments to torture and kill babies: saline injection, partial
abortion, dismemberment and decapitation.

Tony Man (not
his real name, because he is a friend of Jack Man and wants to remain unnamed),
calls IPPF “Planned Parenthood Inquisition.” He has this to ask to those who
love and defend the Inquisition: They want babies Protestants to be aborted or
merely tortured and killed after birth?

Following the
excellent reasoning of Tony Man, I wonder: What about if IPPF had Vatican
approval, as the Inquisition had, then it could kill only Protestant babies and
other “heretical” babies?

For Tony Man and
for me, it is very simple: if you can excuse or defend the Catholic
Inquisition, what prevents you from condoning or defending the IPPF
Inquisition?

The pro-abortion
guy can coolly upbraid you: “Your Catholic Church had the Inquisition and we
have IPPF. Leave us with our genocide and you stay with yours.” But, on both
sides, there is denial, although on the Catholic side the pope has already
asked for forgiveness. So the insistence of defending the Inquisition only
exposes its defenders to ridicule.

The only
difference between the Inquisition and IPPF is that one has a Catholic title
and the other does not. Is this then the reason that those who defend the
Inquisition condemn IPPF? But what moral ethics have the Inquisition
defenders to attack IPPF?

The fact that
there are Catholics today defending the Inquisition indicates only a reality:
apostasy.

Tony Man brought
to my knowledge that Malachi Martin, the well-known late Catholic theologian,
was an adviser to two popes. Martin said in mid-1990s:

* The smoke of Satan is in the Vatican.

* The Catholic Church has come under the control
of Satan.

* That the situation is irreversible.

* That both Pope Paul VI (in the mid-1970s!) and
later John Paul II said that it cannot be reversed or even halted by anything man
can do.

* That the only way to understand the Third
Secret of Fatima, which Malachi Martin was allowed to read (most Catholics
trust and revere that apparition) is to accept that the Vatican, the Roman
Catholic hierarchy and almost all the Catholic laity in the world, are
apostate.

* That Catholicism as we know it, as a religious
institution, is spiritually dead and that this is God's will!

These comments
by the late Rev. Malachi Martin, gathered by Tony Man through a Martin’s sermon, might explain perfectly why some Catholics who
attack a genocide (abortion) are comfortable with another (the Inquisition).

According to Tony
Man, looking carefully at the Protestant churches and their institutions in the
Western countries, Rev. Martin also said that all of them are apostate. The
exception is Protestant churches in the poorest nations of Africa, Asia and
Latin America.

It is healthy to
face reality, as Martin did. As an evangelical, I often go in the opposite
direction of other Protestants, who see Vatican as the Great Babylon described
in Revelation 17. Rev. David Wilkerson, an Assembly of God minister and the
author of the best-selling “The Cross and the Switchblade,” said that Babylon
the Great is America. I agree with him.

Encyclopedia
Britannica, in its 11th edition which I used as the source for the
Inquisition in my Portuguese article, is rejected by pro-Inquisition
Catholics, because they prefer their own baseless books to an encyclopedia of
one hundred years considered by pro-family groups as more reliable than modern
encyclopedias. Even so, the pro-Inquisition Catholics close themselves in their
denial, even after the pope had already asked for forgiveness. Encyclopedia
Britannica also correctly describes the Holocaust. Do we have to accept the
Nazi version only because the side guilty of crimes does not accept the
official version?

Catholic denial,
with its pro-Inquisition supporters, is no different from other historical
denials, including Nazi and communist.

Is there a
revolutionary mindset operating in these affinities? Deniers should answer it.

If I were an
evangelical denier, I never would denounce what America, formerly a Protestant
power, has been doing to impose abortion and the gay agenda on the world. In
addition, I have also denounced the major role of America in the strengthening
and funding of the persecution of Christians around the world. It is a sad
reality, but truth is truth and it cannot be concealed. To deny, hide, varnish
and cripple information about persecution of Christians is a practice of
revisionists and other revolutionary mindset agents.

In the Catholic
case, Pope John Paul II has already asked for forgiveness. Why then insist on
denials and defense of religious genocide?

It makes no
sense Catholics attacking a genocide (abortion) and being comfortable with
another (the Inquisition).

Leone Lins, a
Brazilian who read my original Portuguese article, understood this point. She
said, “Until now, I don’t understand the
fuss about this article. As I see it, Julio Severo says that those who defend
the atrocities perpetrated by the Catholic Inquisition over the centuries have
no moral ethics to say that they are against communist genocides. I agree with
him.”

Let us return
now to the comment by Jack Man, whichshunned
this central problem:

In the subject of the history of The Inquisition,
Julio is completely illiterate. The Protestant Reformation, in England, killed
in a few months more people than The Inquisition did in four centuries.

I will not try
to respond to this comment which fled from the vital subject, because Jack Man
judged me “completely illiterate.” The answer then comes from my friend Michael
Carl, an Anglican Episcopal priest and WND journalist.His response to me was as follows:

Your Catholic critic is confusing the English
Reformation with the English Civil War, much of which was between the
Protestant Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and the mostly Catholic Cavaliers who
supported the king, mostly Catholic because the kings were the Scottish
Catholic Stuarts.

There were more Anglicans killed during the brief
reign of Catholic Mary Tudor, after the death of the puny Edward. This is the
one nicknamed “Bloody Mary” (which is the origin of the cocktail of the same
name) because she had Lady Jane Gray and other Protestant Anglicans executed.

There were also
other deviations from the central topic. Some Catholics have tried to refute my
Portuguese “A inquisição, o papa e o suspiro de alguns católicos
conservadores” by appealing
to a supposed “Protestant Inquisition.” Such “Protestant Inquisition” exists
only in Catholic books. Searching Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 edition, I have
found nothing on “Protestant Inquisition.” But I have found abundant material
on the “Catholic Inquisition.” Anyway, even if there were a “Protestant
Inquisition,” never in my blog or in my Facebook I have praised or suggested
such Inquisition against Catholics.

This article was
written in response to some Catholics who have for a long time, under my
silence and the silence of many other evangelicals, been praising the
Inquisition and, worse, implying that we, evangelicals, deserve it. Do these Catholics
want to praise the Inquisition? They are free to do so. They want to say it
publicly (as a Mídia Sem Máscara columnist did) that evangelicals are modern
“Cathars,” who were considered by the Catholic Inquisition as worthy of torture
and death? They are free to do so.

However, they
can never say they are fighting the culture of death, because within the
culture of death is not only communism. It is also, whether they accept or not,
the Inquisition. Do they want to defend life? They cannot then defend the
Inquisition. It is not impossible to do so. I have Catholic friends who do not
defend the Inquisition. By defending the Inquisition, there is nothing that
separates them from defenders of IPPF, the Holocaust and communism. What unites
them — the slaughter of the innocents — is stronger than what divides them.

There is no
difference between defending IPPF and the Holocaust and defending the
Inquisition. But there is a vast difference between fighting against abortion
and defending the Inquisition.

Having
reaffirmed the main point of my anti-Inquisition and antiabortion stance, let
me explain that the Catholic Church does not save. The Evangelical Church also
does not save. Who saves? Only Jesus Christ.

But according to
Tony Man, Jack Man thinks that the only salvation for Latin America is the
Catholic Church. So his involvement in pro-life coalitions with Protestants has
only one objective: to help the Catholic Church in a supreme role of spiritual
and social salvation for all.

Unfortunately
for Jack Man, the Catholic Church in Brazil and other Latin American nations is
deeply involved in the Marxist Liberation Theology. Especially in Brazil, the
largest Catholic nation in the world, no church has been so involved in the
establishment of socialism than the Catholic Church has, because of massive
apostasy through the Liberation Theology. So it has no salvation, even for
itself, and you do not need to be a Malachi Martin to see it.

It is no wonder:
any church, Catholic or Protestant, which thinks that it can bring salvation to
this world, will commit atrocities. The Inquisition and pervasive socialism in
Brazil are just two examples.

Don Hank has
said, “This article points to an important reason why that is happening: sheer
blind fanaticism. Any Catholic in this day and age who defends the
Inquisition is helping to tear down what is left of the Church. I would also wonder if such a person is not a bit mentally unbalanced. I personally
am thankful to God that I do not need a fallible human to intercede
for me in the place of my personal Savior Jesus Christ.”

To save people,
not apostate Catholic or Protestant institutions, God is pouring out His Spirit
in these last days.

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that
I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour
out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18 ESV)

With this
Spirit, Jesus’ followers will be able to be victorious over the homosexualist,
pro-abortion, socialist Beast, its image, and the number of its name (see
Revelation 15:2).

Monday, October 21, 2013

Homeland
Security: More Insecurity for Christians?

By Julio
Severo

President Barack
Obama on Friday nominated Jeh C. Johnson as the new secretary of Homeland
Security, because of his “deep understanding of the threats and challenges
facing the United States.” He credited Johnson with helping design and
implement policies to repeal the ban on openly gay service members in the U.S.
military, according to an Associated Press story.

Obviously, the
main propaganda of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be what has
always been: to fight terrorism — in a way that expands Islam! Since the 9/11
Islamic terrorist attacks and DHS “counter-terror” measures, many
new mosques are popping up across the United States.

About 1,200
mosques are now operating in the U.S., and almost 80 percent of them were built
after 9/11. The majority of those mosques are led by Wahhabi clerics — from the
same branch of Islam that Osama bin Laden followed.

Muslims in the
US have felt no insecurity from DHS to grow and expand. They have had no
worries about DHS. But since especially the Obama administration, DHS has been
a worry and insecurity for Christians. There is a number of reports of
anti-Christian bias from DHS.

“DHS was caught monitoring a blog posted by a
Christian who was forced to flee Brazil because of the conflict between that
nation’s pro-homosexual ‘hate crimes’ agenda and his advocacy for traditional
marriage. The Obama administration declined comment on its decision to monitor
Julio Severo’s unabashedly Christian Last Days Watchman blog.”

If any
indication, the dark credentials of the new DHS secretary of “designing and
implementing policies to repeal the ban on openly gay service members in the
U.S. military” only make darker how insecure Christians will be in an America,
where mosques are spreading. Christian pro-family groups fought hard to repeal
the homosexualist measure imposed in the US military, and Jeh C. Johnson prevailed.
In DHS, will he achieve other similar homosexualist victories?

Jeh C. Johnson, new DHS secretary: gay agenda advocate

According to the
AP story, Obama nominated him “to help craft the nation’s counterterrorism
policy.”

Will Christians
and their fight against gay dictatorship be targeted as “terrorist threats”?

Mohamed Elibiary,
a DHS adviser since 2010, defends the Muslim Brotherhood and, according
to WND, he accuses Egypt’s persecuted Christian minority of “inciting”
against Islam. So if Christians are murdered by Muslims in Egypt, is it because
they spoke about Jesus the Savior or other similarly “offensive” terms?

Mohamed Elibiary: a radical Muslim in DHS

Elibiary has
warned the tea party against attempting to change the U.S. political
landscape through “Christianist Xenophobia.”

The U.S.
government wants supposedly to defeat terror by employing anti-Christian
Muslims and supporting Muslim expansion in America. A nation in sin sows its
own destruction.

The wicked U.S. example
could infect other nations, including Brazil. “The United States is a global
leader on everything, and that includes gay rights,” said Julio Moreira,
president of the Rio de Janeiro-based Arco-Iris gay supremacist group. “This
will force other nations like Brazil to move forward with more progressive
policies.”

With America
leading, international anti-terror measures could focus on Christians and their
values. After all, to face Muslim terror brings bombs and other mortal
consequences. To persecute Christians does not bring any of such consequences.

If DHS is a
model for the international future, Christians should be prepared for a world
with unsurprising mosque growth, funded by former Christian Western nations,
and very predictable Christian persecution.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Free
Masons Denounced on House Floor

By Julio
Severo

It took House of
Representatives stenographer Dianne Reidy to denounce the Free Masons. She had
no right to use the House microphone to speak what U.S. Representatives have
never spoken, and the media has said that she “freaked out.” Fox News said that
what has happened today, October 17, is very strange.

Reidy said, “Do
not be deceived. God shall not be mocked. A House divided cannot stand. He will
not be mocked. He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. The greatest
deception here is that this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it
been, the Constitution would not have been written by Free Masons… and go
against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise
be to God, Lord Jesus.”

Reidy was taken
to a local hospital for evaluation, given her unusual behavior, which many
noted was completely out of character for the stenographer. She was also
interviewed by police, but no charges are expected to be filed.

"She’s a
well-known person, she’s a perfectly nice person, a good colleague, somebody
who’s respectable and dependable, and this is very surprising to everybody who
works with her,” CNN reporter Dana Bash said on-air.

For the media,
it was just foolishness. But I wonder if there was Somebody behind it:

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame
the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:27
ESV)

Monday, October 07, 2013

Homosexual
“Marriage” and the Last Days

Ancient
Rabbinical tradition holds that homosexuality, more specifically “homosexual
marriage,” was the “final insult” to God which caused Him to bring the Great
Flood

By Dr. Scott
Lively and Kevin
Abrams

From a biblical
perspective ritualized sexual perversion and especially homosexuality mark the
furthest extreme of rebellion against God. Ancient Rabbinical tradition holds
that homosexuality, more specifically homosexual marriage, was the “final
insult” to God which caused Him to bring that Great Flood which only Noah and
his family survived. In his book Ancient Post-Flood History theologian Ken
Johnson cites three prominent Rabbinical sources on this point:

Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, “The
generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents
for the union of a man to a male or to an animal.” Genesis Rabbah 26:4-5;
Leviticus Rabbah 23.9.

Rabbi Hiyyah taught: The passage reads “I am the Lord,
your God” two times - I am the One Who punished the generation of the Flood,
and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Egypt; and in the future I will
punish those who do as they did. The generations of the Flood were kings, and
were wiped off the earth when they were soaked in sexual sin. Leviticus Rabbah
23:9 (commentary on Leviticus 18:3)

And what did they do? A man got married to a man, and
a woman to a woman, a man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman was
married to two (men). Therefore it is said, “And you shall not walk in their
statutes.” Sifra Acharei Mot, Parashaw 9:8 (commentary on Leviticus 18:3.19)

Immediately
following the Flood we find that the seed of homosexual perversion has survived
in the human family through the line of Ham. In Genesis 9, Noah fell
unconscious from drinking too much wine and while he was thus incapacitated Ham
[or rather Ham’s son Caanan] “saw [or uncovered] his nakedness.” This term
“uncovering nakedness,“ used primarily in the book of Leviticus, is a Hebraic
euphemism for sexual intercourse.

In the New
American Standard Bible, the passage reads

Ham, the father of Caanan, saw the nakedness of his
father….When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest [grand]son had
done to him. So he said, ‘Cursed be Caanan‘ (Genesis 9:22-25).

In Call of the
Torah Rabbi Elie Munk cites Hebrew scholars who also interpret Caanan’s
violation as “an act of pederasty” — (Munk:220).

Thus, as a
result of his sexual attack on his grandfather, Caanan is cursed by Noah and
banished from his presence. Caanan then takes possession of the very territory
that would later be promised to Abraham’s descendants: the “Promised Land of
Israel.”

Importantly, a
few generations after Caanan’s banishment, four cities which his descendants
had founded, including Sodom and Gomorrah, were destroyed by God because of
homosexuality. Sexual perversion had so thoroughly corrupted the society that
it rivaled the apostasy that had caused the Great Flood. Every single man of
Sodom, both young and old descended on the home of Abraham’s nephew Lot with
the intent to rape the two angels sent by God to judge the city. So insatiable
was their lust that they continued to pursue their vile goal even after being
stuck blind by the angels. Their destruction followed swiftly. (Genesis
19:1-11).

Taken from the Chapter Two: “Homo-Occultism” of “The
Pink Swastika,” by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams.

Saturday, October 05, 2013

US,
Europe, Brazil and Israel: Homosexualist Elite in the United Nations

Comment by Julio Severo: Recently, Brazilian socialist president Dilma
Rousseff “boycotted” a presidential meeting with Obama, allegedly because the
US government has been spying her private communications. But the boycott was
mere smokescreen. There is no ideological antagonism between the Brazilian
socialist government and the American socialist government, at least not in
regards to the gay agenda. In the backstages, America and Brazil are comrades
in (gay) arms. Whatever America intends to do to impose the gay agenda around
the world, Brazil (sadly) will be a faithful collaborator. The article I am
bringing you was authored by C-FAM, and it is very important. Please, spread it. There is a homosexualist
elite in the United Nations system. This elite, headed by the US government,
has also Brazil and Israel. As a Christian, I am sad for Brazil and its role
helping such a wicked elite. I am also sad for America and especially for
Israel, because God has wonderful plans for this nation led stray by socialism.

Eleven
Countries Promise to Keep Homosexuality on UN Agenda

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

NEW YORK,
October 4 (C-FAM) Eleven countries announced they will continue to hoist the
rainbow flag at the United Nations despite setbacks in recent years.

U. S. Secretary
of State John Kerry and officials from ten countries promised to promote
homosexuality at the United Nations in a declaration issued last week. The “Core
LGBT Group,” as the eleven countries are called, committed to “concerted
action” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

The statement
commends countries that have repealed sodomy laws, enacted hate crimes
legislation and have other special protections for homosexuals.

Kerry tried to
be upbeat about the progress of LGBT rights at the United Nations, and
described recent developments as “unfathomable” in a statement released through
the U.S. State Department.

But the path to
get nations to celebrate homosexuality remains a steep one, as homosexual
groups have found out in recent years.

Despite intense
efforts by the United States, the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender
identity” are part of only one General Assembly resolution. That resolution is
about extrajudicial killings, and even so, it always comes down to a close
vote.

In 2010, the
United States promised a General Assembly resolution on homosexual rights. Such
a resolution does not have enough support from UN member states. Skeptics say
the recent declaration amounts to little more than a press release, and merely
panders to constituents that want LGBT rights.

Most countries
in Asia and Africa object to homosexuality. Globally, 80 countries have sodomy
laws. Less than 20 recognize same-sex couples, and only 14 allow persons of the
same sex to marry.

The UN’s top
human rights official, Ms. Navi Pillay, who has spearheaded the LGBT cause at
the United Nations in recent years, has met resistance at every turn. Countries
resent that her staff receives earmarked funds for LGBT rights from Nordic
countries and still asks for more money from the UN budget.

Aware of these
challenges, the United States is funding homosexual activists abroad. The
Global Equality Fund, which has disbursed $7 million since its launch in 2011,
has expanded with the help of Nordic countries and private sector partners.
Obama has announced an additional $12 million in the fund.

Only Argentina,
Brazil, Croatia, the European Union, France, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway, and the United States attended the meeting. They described
it as a “groundbreaking” UN event. The event was not advertised in the UN
Journal, which lists official UN meetings, and took place in a small room in
the Secretariat building.

A spokesperson
for the secretariat said the meeting had been “announced” and that any of the
194 UN member states could have asked to attend. Russian diplomats, who have
been under fire for Russia’s laws to protect children from harmful sexual
propaganda, reportedly said they were not aware the meeting was taking place.

The group of
countries was joined by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR), Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission.

Even though no
international treaty mentions LGBT rights, these groups say international law
requires special new rights for homosexuals that include privileges for
same-sex couples, recognition of transgender identities, and hate crimes laws
with special enforcement mechanisms, among others.

In his The Gospel Coalition blog,
Brazilian Calvinist theologian Augustus Nicodemus Gomes Lopes said, “When Paulo
Romeiro wrote ‘Evangelicals in Crisis’ in the mid-1990s, a book that has
remained a bestseller among Brazilian evangelicals, he addressed just one of
the many ways in which evangelicalism had collapsed in Brazil, namely, its
inability to halt the spread of prosperity theology.” (Link: http://archive.is/hjNXb)

He mentions “Prosperity Theology”
three times. Strangely, Liberation Theology and its Protestant version,
Theology of Integral Mission, are missing in his text.

Even though Theology of Integral
Mission is a problem predominating among Brazilian Calvinists, Nicodemus
focuses nominally only on the Prosperity Theology, which is loosely followed by
neo-Pentecostal (neo-charismatic) churches.

In the simplest terms, Theology of
Integral Mission, which is embraced by theologians and leaders mostly from
wealthy Reformed churches, is an approach leaders employ to teach the poor to
look to the State as a provider for their material needs. In contrast,
Prosperity Theology is loosely followed and practiced in Brazilian
neo-Pentecostal churches, where the poor are taught to look after God as a
provider for their material and spiritual needs.

Basically, both theologies came
from the United States. In the 1950s, Rev. Richard Schaull, an strong adherent
of the Social Gospel and later a Princeton professor, taught in the largest
seminary of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil — the same denomination of Nicodemus.

His influence, firstly in the
Presbyterian Church of Brazil, was impressive, and he was a precursor of
Liberation Theology. His disciple, then Presbyterian theologian Rubem Alves,
was also instrumental in the birth of Liberation Theology in Brazil in the
1960s.

Neo-Pentecostal churches began to
appear in Brazil especially in the late 1970s, when Brazilian evangelical
audiences were largely under the influence of televangelists Pat Robertson and
Rex Humbard and their famous shows in Brazil “The 700 Club” and “You Are
Loved.” Further, many were converted to Christ through these shows.

By the mid-1980s, Protestant
leaders, including Rev. Caio Fábio, were worried that the Prosperity Theology
taught in neo-Pentecostal churches was weakening the advance of the Theology of
Integral Mission throughout the Brazilian Church. You can find more information
in my free e-book here: http://bit.ly/15AJmMC

Caio Fabio, who was the most
prominent leader in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, eventually fell from
grace over serious sexual and financial scandals in the late 1990s, after his
sordid assistance to former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and
his socialist Workers’ Party in drawing evangelical Christians.

The main enemies of
neo-Pentecostalism and its Prosperity Theology have been leftist Protestants.
Though not a leftist, Augustus Nicodemus finds it easier to attack nominally
Prosperity Theology than the Theology of Integral Mission. When he was Chancellor
of the Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo, Brazil, he admitted
theology professors who were adherents of the Theology of Integral Mission, but
no Prosperity Theology adherent was admitted.

Why has neo-Pentecostalism, not the
Marxist Theology of Integral Mission, been his main bone of contention? Because
of his theology, which has been in particular conflict with the vast
evangelical majority in Brazil. Nicodemus is the leading cessationist voice in
Brazil. Cessationism preaches that prophecy and other supernatural gifts of the
Holy Spirit ceased 2,000 years ago.

He has had a hard time
understanding how Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches have
experienced such phenomenal growth. Nicodemus says: “According to the latest official
census, evangelicals represent almost one-quarter of the total population of
Brazil (22.5 percent). This is phenomenal growth, seeing that just 40 years ago
they were only 2.5 percent.”

What he did not tell is that this
massive growth has everything to do with supernatural gifts and the Holy
Spirit. According to “The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and
Charismatic Movements: Revised and Expanded Edition” (Zondervan 2010), Brazil
has the following evangelical profile:

Pentecostals
24,810,921 (31%)

Charismatics
33,970,683 (42%)

Neocharismatics
21,168,395 (26%)

Total
Renewal: 79,949,999

According to the Portuguese
Wikipedia, the Presbyterian denomination of Nicodemus in Brazil has 980,000
members. This figure does not mean that all Brazilian Presbyterians are
cessationists. Many of them are charismatics.

His cessationism brings another
problem: if current prophecy and other supernatural gifts among Brazilian
Christians are not from God, who is provoking Pentecostal, charismatic and
neo-Pentecostal growth in Brazil? Who is performing miracles among them? Satan?

Brazil is the largest
spiritualistic nation in the world. Witchcraft, especially from African origin,
is rampant. The clash between the dark powers of these occult religions and
Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches and their spiritual gifts
has resulted in massive conversions to Christ.

This clash is necessary. As
Calvinist theologian Vincent Cheung said, “One answer to demonic supernatural
power is a greater divine supernatural power. The Bible portrays numerous power
encounters, where the miracle-working power of God overwhelmed the power of
Satan. Consider the confrontations between Moses and the magicians, Elijah and
the false prophets, Jesus and the demon-possessed, Philip and Simon, Paul and
Elymas, and Paul and this girl with the evil spirit in our text. Paul cast out
the spirit of divination, and the girl lost her ability. This is the biblical
answer to the miracles of Satan. The solution is not denial, but discernment
and domination.” (Sermonettes, Volume 7, Chapter Seven.)

As a cessationist, Nicodemus
prefers denial and he sees many problems in the explosive Pentecostal,
charismatic and neo-Pentecostal growth. He said, “How did evangelicalism reach
this point of success and concurrent crisis in Brazil? Reformation theology and
practice has never been fully known or adopted in our country, even among the
Reformed churches.” So the evangelical crisis in Brazil stems from the fact
that they have not, as he said, “known the doctrines of the Reformation in
their fullness and power.”

But what is necessary to prevail in
the clashes between dark spiritual powers and divine powers? To be filled with
Reformation traditions or to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit?

Nicodemus also said, “By disdaining
centuries of tradition and theological interpretation, evangelicals found
themselves vulnerable to any new interpretation, such as open theism, theology
of prosperity, a new perspective on Paul, and so on.” No mention about the most
important threat to the Reformed churches in Brazil, namely, Liberation
Theology and its Protestant counterpart Theology of Integral Mission.

The leading advocate of the
Theology of Integral Mission in Brazil is Rev. Ariovaldo Ramos, minister of the
Reformed Christian Church. Recently, he praised Hugo Chavez as a hero for the
weak and poor. His prominent leftist activities have gone unchallenged by
Nicodemus and other Reformed leaders.

Feliciano also supported the
election of this government. But when a clash between values and government
came, he chose values. Because of his public moral stances, he has been
consistently attacked by the secular and religious Left, including Ramos.

In a darker
contrast, Nicodemus is a member of ANAJURE, a Christian group in Brazil created to defend
Christians and their civil rights, whose president has issued a public
statement against Feliciano. Also, in 2010, after gay
activists protested a public manifesto against PLC 122 posted on the website of
his university, Nicodemus ordered its removal, bowing to gay demands.

Apparently, nothing of this has
been a concern for him.

As a cessationist, he is worried
only about Pentecostals, especially because of their lack of theological
direction. Even among neo-Pentecostal churches practicing Prosperity Theology,
the diversity of interpretations and practices is gigantic. For example, the
most aggressive neo-Pentecostal denomination in Brazil, Universal Church of the
Kingdom of God (UCKG), is cessationist, believes in miracles only by positive
confession and prayer and rejects prophecy and other supernatural gifts of the
Holy Spirit for today. UCKG preaches that manifestations of these gifts today
are demonic — a stance not differing from the stance of their cessationist
Reformed counterparts. UCKG founder Bishop Edir Macedo has been an outspoken
abortion supporter. But in these two points — cessationism and abortion — UCKG
has been an exception among neo-Pentecostal churches in Brazil.

There is an explanation for these
immense differences. According to “The New International Dictionary of
Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements”: “The diversity of global pentecostalism
makes it impossible to speak of ‘a’ pentecostal theology, especially since a
full-blown theology of the Christian faith from a classical pentecostal
perspective has not yet been written.” This is especially true in Brazil.

Because he thinks basically in
theological terms, Nicodemus probably sees little hope for such theology-less
churches. In fact, for him this is a “crisis.” He said, “There is no easy way
out of this crisis. However, there are some encouraging signs of change that I
cannot leave unmentioned. One of them is the surprising growth of Reformed
faith among Pentecostals. There are innumerable examples of Pentecostal pastors
turning to the Reformed interpretation of the Scriptures. Sometimes even entire
Pentecostal churches have undergone this change. I quote here an e-mail I
received some weeks ago from a former Pentecostal pastor: Your book Spiritual Worship [first published in 1998 and now in
its 5th edition] made our whole church stop speaking in tongues and changed our
whole liturgy. We even had to change the sign on our building from ‘Assembly of
God’ to ‘Reformed Church.’”

An Assembly of God church stopped
speaking in tongues (and possibly stopped prophecies too), and cessationism won
in the name of Reformation. But is this a spiritual victory?

Here is the Brazilian reality:
Millions of lost souls are perishing. Spiritualism is widespread. Liberation
Theology is rampant in the Catholic Church. Theology of Integral Mission is
rampant in Reformed churches. And a Reformed theologian is interested on
churches leaving charismatic experiences and becoming Reformed?

This is a very frivolous and
irresponsible concern.

For decades, Theology of Integral
Mission — not to mention free Mansory — has been a major problem among Reformed
churches, and Nicodemus’ major worry is growth of Pentecostal, charismatic and
neo-Pentecostal churches?

Recently, my blog exposed
Nicodemus’ cessationism, and one of his fans commented that if the concern of
Christians opposed to cessationism is healing, vision and prophecy, they should
visit spiritualist temples to see all of this. So the false doctrine of
Nicodemus and other Reformed theologians has inevitably led their followers to
see just “spiritualism” in the Pentecostal, charismatic and neo-Pentecostal
churches in Brazil.

This is a gross misrepresentation
not only of God’s power, but also of His essential role in the phenomenal
growth of the Brazilian Evangelical Church.

Would it make sense for a person
living in France to see the most important problem of that nation as its
language?

Why would you live in France if you
disliked French? Would you try to convert French-speaking people into
Portuguese-speaking people? Brazil is not France, but its evangelical
population is massively Pentecostal, and Nicodemus wants to convert them to Reformed
and, hopefully, to cessationists.

Yes, Reformed contact could be
helpful to Pentecostals in Brazil, but first Reformed leaders need to renounce,
denounce and fight the Theology of Integral Mission prevalent among them.
Otherwise, greater Reformed contact for Pentecostals will only bring more of
the same crisis and confusion that started to defile Pentecostal, charismatic
and neo-Pentecostal churches in the late 1990s by the literature and
conferences of Caio Fábio, Ariovaldo Ramos and other Reformed leftist leaders
advocating the Protestant counterpart of Liberation Theology.

Among Reformed (Presbyterian,
Calvinist) churches, the defilement began in the 1950s! There is a liberal
crisis plaguing Reformed churches in Brazil, but Nicodemus and other
theologically trained leaders refuse to tackle it directly. Brazil is a cradle
of Liberation Theology. Even so, Nicodemus never mentioned it in his article
designed to point out only the crisis over Pentecostalism.

In the 1990s, I attended a
Presbyterian church, of the same denomination as Nicodemus. They were greatly
concerned about Prosperity Theology. To protect themselves, all the local
Presbyterian churches encouraged collective subscriptions by their members to
Ultimato magazine — the foremost Brazilian Presbyterian voice for the Theology
of Integral Mission.

For years I have denounced Ultimato
— which have consistently attacked conservatives. But Nicodemus and his
cessationist comrades have never denounced it the way they denounce
neo-Pentecostals.

There is a Reformed crisis in
Europe and America, where mainline denominations are ordaining gay ministers
and leading anti-Israel boycotts. Liberalism crept in largely unopposed, and
the result is widespread apostasy. And since its beginning in Brazil, the
Theology of Integral Mission movement has had prominent Reformed leaders.

If cessationism is a blindfold,
this explains why even such non-liberal Reformed leaders as Nicodemus are
unable to fight the Theology of Integral Mission the way they systematically
fight Prosperity Theology and other Pentecostal practices, including the March
for Jesus, which is led by Neo-Pentecostals opposed to abortion and PLC 122.
The Presbyterian Church of Brazil (PCB) has a similar event in Rio de Janeiro,
called “Caminhada Presbiteriana pela Cidadania” (Presbyterian March for
Citizenship). This march has as its official mission to increase visibility for
PCB and Mackenzie Presbyterian University, whose chancellor until recently was
Nicodemus.

“Caminhada Presbiteriana pela
Cidadania” has partnered with spiritualists and Afro-Brazilian religions. Its
leader, Rev. Marcos Amaral, has publicly expressed his wish for a long life for
Hugo Chavez and a stroke for Marco Feliciano, because the Pentecostal minister
has been hated by secular and Protestant leftists over his conservative stances
on abortion and homosexuality. In fact, Rev. Amaral has even joined prominent
secular leftist Brazilians to protest against Feliciano. Nicodemus has an
article blasting March for Jesus, but no article against the Presbyterian march
led by Rev. Amaral.

Pentecostals do need help,
especially because they are under heavy attack from leftist secularists and
Calvinists. Yet, are Reformed leaders really the correct and complete answer?

What about cessationist blindness
and the Theology of Integral Mission?

Is there deliverance from these Reformed pitfalls in Brazil? Yes — to
be filled with the power and knowledge of the Holy Spirit.